I know, I know, I got it wrong. Supposedly, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. But, this is the United States of Insanity. President Bush warned us last week that the carbon cap is inevitable. Like it or not, it’s coming. Good timing, the Saturday Wall Street Journal had a front page article: U.N. Effort to Curtail Emissions In Turmoil. I won’t bore you with the details, but the substance is this.
Guess what? You need thousands of auditors to check to see if the good folks earning the credits are legitimate. Believe it or not, some are actually lying about what they are doing to deserve credits. Wow, imagine that. The global carbon cap market last year was worth 40.4 billion euros. Remarkable.
Washington can’t stand the pressure. We have to get in the game. Here’s how I describe the game. If I am legitimate, I create an offset to carbon dioxide that the UN approves. They grant me so many carbon credits for doing what I planned to do anyway when the crude price hit $80 let alone $115. Now, I can sell those carbon credits to a utility. The utility adds the cost to the consumer and everyone is happy, well, maybe not the consumer. If I’m not legitimate, I scam the UN, get the carbon credits, do nothing and sell them to the utility and then pass them on to you. Wait, you paid for nothing. Sorry.
Estimates say this will add up to fifty cents per gallon on gasoline and significant increases in your utility bill. But, how many bureaucrats will it take to grant carbon credits. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. Who pays for that? You do, naturally.
Assuming we don’t get scammed, which we will, big time, we reduce carbon dioxide, which has never been proven to add to global warming, and we get higher taxes and more expensive energy. Such a deal. Plus, we make friends with Europe again. They don’t want to be the only ones being scammed. Misery loves company.
Have you been to Europe. They live in close quarters, small houses, drive small cars, and the whole thing is the size of Texas. So, if their carbon cap market is 40 billion Euros, ours will be much, much larger. If you own a small office building, get ready to buy carbon credits and pass them on to your tenants.
This will be a real boon to our current state of Economic Depression. Fight or Flee, those are your options. Canada looking good?